


Cake Mix.

by diamondgore



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Baking, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Multi, Tooth Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-28 04:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18203804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diamondgore/pseuds/diamondgore
Summary: Hinami can’t sleep, but Tsukiyama and Banjou fix that.





	Cake Mix.

**Author's Note:**

> This was part of the TG reverse Big Bang! It has a beautiful art piece by bacondraws on tumblr and betaed by the lovely isammy7936!   
> I hope you all enjoy it!!

A year prior on a unusually cold spring day, Hinami had celebrated her first birthday with her new family. She had remembered the day dearly, as it was three months her mother’s death, a few weeks after Kaneki was captured and then set free. There was no cake, and no festivities, only Touka wishing her a happy birthday and allowing her the first cut of fresh flesh. Hinami was given a gift by Kanek: a book that she couldn’t read. She remembered the memory as clear as crystal. It played at the back of her head when she was lonely and scared.

  
Right now, Hinami thought, she would give anything to go back to that beautiful moment where she was safe and warm, and celebrated. There was safety in the café, but she knew she would have to move away from that mindset. The times were changing and so is Hinami’s life, whether she had liked it or not.    
  
Hinami didn’t like to wake up in the middle of the night. She constantly felt cold and alone. When she had shared that tiny apartment with Touka, at the very least she could roll over and see her big sister, sleeping right next to her. With a content smile, Hinami would roll over, and fall back asleep with no qualms.    
  
However, now that she had her own room in the Tsukiyama villa, she felt almost scared. Scared of the loneliness that has managed to grip her chest. Hinami was not the one who didn’t admit to fear, but it was most definitely something that she wished she could ignore. She always saw Shuu, Kaneki and even Banjou suppress their fear, and she wants to be the same, but instead she’s stuck staring at the white ceiling, hoping she’d fall back asleep without having to wake anyone else up. She absolutely hated the fact that she was always stricken with fear. She knew that even if she flicked on the lights in her room, it wouldn’t help her feel less lonely. The light would somehow be a lot more isolating than the darkness. Ghouls tend be caught more often on the sunlight than the moonlight, that’s something she thought a lot about. She tends off the lights when she tiptoes around the house, hoping not to be a bother. She knows that her odd habits annoy the adults in the villa but they usually pay her no mind.

 

Would they pay her any mind if she had decided to sneak around at the current hour? While ghouls were nocturnal, Shuu, Banjou and Kaneki all enjoyed getting in their sleep. Shuu usually disappeared to his manor at this time of night, but she had heard his voice coming from the other room a little earlier this evening. However, she only heard two hearts beating from the other room. One was beating in the living room and the other was in Banjou’s room. 

 

So, Shuu had left for his manor. Hinami felt a quick pang of disappointment, it dissipated quickly, but she still felt a little hurt that he left so early. She briefly glances at the clock next to her as the bright green LED lights tell her it is three am in the morning. 

 

She wonders why Kaneki was sleeping in the living room? Perhaps he was reading? Or watching TV? Possibly not. If it was any of the latter she would have heard the flipping of papers or mashing of remote buttons. But neither seen to be present at the moment. That still left her with the burning question as to why Kaneki was sleeping in the living room all by himself when he had a perfectly good bedroom to sleep in. 

 

Hinami could go out and investigate. Technically, she shouldn’t get into trouble, as she had no schooling responsibilities tomorrow. She actually had nothing to do tomorrow other than read the book that Kaneki had given her a year prior. She had learned some new kanji over the last month or so, so perhaps it was in her level of reading. That however, would involve her opening up the lights and possibly alerting everyone that she was awake. 

 

There was really no way she could fall back asleep at this point with the anxiety at the back of his throat, even with whatever deep breathing exercises she could do. So she was going to bite the bullet and sneak outside into the living room. 

 

She got out of bed and threw her fluffy pink sheets to the side, then put on a pair of bird slippers that Shuu had bought her the last time they were out shopping together for new clothes. She always felt ashamed that he bought her gifts like it was nothing, she could never repay him in the same way. She didn’t have enough money or creativity to ever do anything for him. 

 

She frowned deeply as she looked at yellow bird slippers. They were awfully cute, and maybe it was okay that he spoiled her, she never really got stuff this nice before. 

 

Hinami grabbed her robe from the edge of the bed and then walked outside of her room, softly. She still didn’t want to wake anyone else up if she could avoid it. 

 

The door behind her was shut with a loud slam, as her calculated movements didn’t calculate that there would be wind blowing through the apartment. The large window in the living room was wide open, with the white curtains that framed it fluttering with the wind. Hinami thought she might just die then and there. Her face was red, and she was holding her breath so that whoever was sleeping on the couch wouldn’t hear her if they woke up. 

 

But it seemed that she’d forgotten that she had a unique scent, and unfortunately for her, the person that was fast asleep on the couch was none other than the Gourmet himself, Tsukiyama Shuu. He shifted uncomfortably for a moment before opening his eyes. 

 

Hinami could tell they were open because they were glowing like red rubies, bright shiny things the dark room.

 

“Miss Hinami? Is that you?” He asked, his voice still sleepy and raw. His voice always sounded melodic, this was the first time she had heard it so rough. 

 

She let out a loud breath. No need to hide since she’d been caught. 

 

“Yes, it’s me.” She sounded ashamed and embarrassed. 

 

“What are you doing up?” He sat up on the couch and then rubbed both of his eyes. His turquoise hair was a mess, sticking up in multiple cowlicks. “Did something happen?” He asked, stifling a yawn into the back of his palm. 

 

Hinami stayed silent. They could both hear the traffic from outside their window, but neither of them said anything as cars passed by outside. There was the sound of the train halting at the subway station next them. Shuu didn’t speak until it pulled out. 

 

“Are you scared, little miss?” Shuu asked, his voice now clear after he had coughed into his hand a few times. “I understand that living here might be a little more jarring than the 10th Ward. I know it’s a lot noisier. For someone with sensitive ears like yours it must be a bother.” 

 

She saw him fumble with the light switch before switching it on. His black sclera and red irises turn back to just his deep crimson eyes. They were still odd to most humans, but many passed it off as some type of rare disease, rather than an indicator of his ghoul-physiology. After all, since when were ghouls that put together? 

 

He turned around to face her.

 

“Yes.”

“The dark or something else?” He asked with the intent of being fatherly. 

 

“Of being alone.” She said with complete sincerity.

 

“Hmm.” Shuu got up, and grabbed the blanket from the couch he was sleeping on. “Would you feel better if I slept in the same room with you? I can sleep on the floor, so that way I wouldn’t disturb you. But I would be right there if you need me.”

Hinami nodded. Shuu yawned one last time and turned off the lights before following his little girl into her bedroom. 

 

Hinami’s room was quite the pleasant affair. It had bright yellow wallpaper with a soft floral pattern, and white trimming. It used to be the room which Shuu had dedicated completely to reading, before he had transformed it into the third bedroom. The books that he read were still in the wooden shelves that covered the room’s western wall, with its eastern wall covered in one large window, with a little seating area underneath the window sill. Hinami had converted the are where Shuu used to read into a holding space for all the stuffed toys that she was collecting. 

 

Shuu had found it both endearing and cute. 

 

He spread his blanket on east end of the room, just below her bed. He looked at the stuffed toys and then at Hinami. “Which one would you prefer for me to rest my head upon?”

 

He asked. He was partial to the huge blue budgie. It seemed so soft. The second one that had caught his eye was the yellow egg, as it was larger, and would probably be more comfortable to sleep on. But as always, life didn’t have it in store for him to get what he wanted. Hinami pointed to a purple octopus, with long bean filled tentacles. Of course, Shuu should’ve known it would be the googly-eyed octopus. He picked it up and then smiled at Hinami. 

 

“Good choice.” He lied, and then plucked it on the floor. The wooden floor in the bedroom was much warmer than in the hallway, Shuu noted before getting down on his knees. He wouldn’t need a blanket, but if worse came to worse he’d use the giant egg as a blanket. 

 

Hinami took off her robe and hung it on the door knob, and then took off her slippers at the side of her bed. She was thankful that Shuu wasn’t weirded out about sleeping in the same room as her. She felt a lot safer now, with an S-Rated ghoul sleeping at the edge of her bed. 

“You don’t have to do this.” Hinami said, still scared she had pushed him out of his comfort zone. 

 

“Hinami, it’s alright.” Shuu said before lying down on his back. “Your comfort and safety matter a lot to me.” Six months ago this would’ve been a lie he said to get on Kaneki’s good side, but now he had actually meant it. It seemed that Hinami knew it too. 

 

She crawled into bed, and closed her eyes, hoping she’d fall asleep faster. Within ten minutes she was fast asleep, snoring loudly. Shuu didn’t know that a small girl could produce snores that loud and powerful, but within the hour, he’d also fallen asleep on the hardwood floor, knowing well that he would wake up with a messed up back.

 

*

 

Morning couldn’t come soon enough, and as soon as the dawn light had filtered in through the window, Shuu was awake. He had always been a morning person, awake from the crack of dawn despite being a ghoul. He silently returned everything back into its original place, folded his blanket and placed it neatly next to the octopus before ghosting out of the room like he was never there. 

 

Hinami seemed to be having a good night’s rest, though, Shuu thought as he saw her sprawled out on the bed like an eagle. For someone so petite she really managed to take up the entire bed. 

 

The morning air wasn’t crisp. It was somewhat foggy and damp, and Shuu had to shut the window in the living room so that he could breathe properly. His back was hurting from the fact that he’d slept on hardwood floors, but it wasn’t something that a quick massage from Matsumae couldn’t fix. He stretched out his back in the kitchen. He loved children, he honestly truly did, but they were always out to get his back wrecked. He was only twenty-one and his back felt like it belonged to an eighty year old man. He put his arms over his head and pulled it over his head. Groaning softly, he heard something loudly pop, much to his own chagrin. 

 

“Was the couch really that uncomfortable?” Banjou asked as he walked into the kitchen, still in his boxers and tight black shirt. He wouldn’t get fully dressed till later, to actually prepare for the day. “I would have let you share the bed with me.” Banjou did not trust Shuu when they had initially met, he was all teeth, all bite. But it seemed that things have changed enough for Banjou to feel a quarter ounce of sympathy for him.

 

“No.” Shuu said, looking up at Banjou as he was bent forward with both of his hands touching his toes. “I slept on the floor of Miss Hinami’s room. I remember falling asleep there before, when the room was mine, of course, the wood was never that hard.” Shuu frowned and rolled out his shoulders. 

 

While there was always a constant pain in his back, but for the longest time, Shuu had chosen to ignore it, it was exacerbated by the time he had spent on the floor. The cold possibly made it worse, too. It had been a cold month, even as spring was in full bloom.  Shuu watched as Banjou began to make coffee in their automated coffee machine. 

 

He was the only one that knew how to use it. It was a German machine, not a regular French press, that Shuu had bought specifically to the villa. He thought that it would be easy to use, but it turned out, that he didn’t understand what a single button did on it. Neither did Kaneki, however considering that Kaneki ate ground coffee like it was sugar, it was fine. 

 

Banjou and Shuu would never commit such an act of monstrosity. Coffee beans were a different ballpark, but Shuu, if he could avoid it, did not chew on coffee beans.  They would stain his teeth, and while he was a narcissist who always stared in the mirror, he knew he would eventually miss a stain on his perfect white teeth. Perfect white teeth pressed together to make the perfect smile. Shuu did not like making small talk, as he had always forced himself to talk that way with people in his same class, it would take more energy for him to talk to Banjou in the same way. Banjo was busy filling the carafe of the coffee machine with water. 

 

“Thank you Banjoi.” He still mispronounced the name. It was somewhat endearing now that they had lived together for the past few months. Banjou stopped being angry about it. “But I do not mind sleeping on the couch.” 

 

“Suit yourself.” Banjou had never been a man of many words, and to fill the silence between the two he pressed the on button of the coffee machine. It made a made a whirring sound as it struggled to heat up the water. It took a few minutes of whirring and a gust of steam for the coffee to made. 

 

Two Caffè Americanos in cups that were too big. Banjou had messed up the settings on the machine, but the coffee wasn’t bad, it was just very little.

 

“I wish we could use milk, that way we could, perhaps make a lattes.” Shuu said after picking up one of the oversized cups, “The taste of coffee gets boring after a little while.”

 

Banjou did not respond.

 

Shuu sighed into the coffee, while Banjou, who was busy drinking from his cup, fiddled some more with the coffee machine. Both of them wished that they had kept the manual, but that was in the past now. 

 

“Banjo, I have a question.”

 

“I don’t have an answer.” 

 

Shuu leaned onto the counter and then hit Banjou’s back side with his foot. “It’s about Hinami. You spend more time here with her than I do.”

 

Banjou turned around with a frown. His teeth was gritted and he did not have that much patience for Shuu on a good day, and this day didn’t seem to be a good one. “Fine.”

 

“Has the little princess always been this anxious? Last night I saw her sneak out of her bedroom. She couldn’t sleep last night.” 

 

Banjou put down his coffee cup and mulled over it a bit. He had been living inside, on the villa premises for far longer than Shuu had and he had earned the trust of the little girl. He thought for a moment. Hinami ad always been a shy thing, someone who hated conflict at any moment. He knew that on occasion she snuck into Kaneki’s room, or slept in the living room with all the lights on. Hinami was more fearful than anything, but the last few weeks it had been getting better.

 

“Yes. Kaneki and I thought that we had it under control, she hasn’t done it in a while.” Banjou said, finally connecting the dots that was why he was on the floor of Hinami’s room. It wasn’t just a choice, Shuu wanted to help out. Despite Shuu’s meanness, and coldness, there was a silver lining underneath his clouds.

 

“Do you think it’s the stress?”

 

“The stress of what? She’s a child.” Banjou replied. He never had the luxury of a roof over his head when he was a child. This was quite the quaint life. 

 

“I used to cower in fear in the night until I was fourteen.” Shuu said, with a vulnerability to his voice. “If she’s been that way for a while, I think I might have an idea to distract her from her fears, even if it’s for a little while.” There was a lightbulb moment within Shuu. 

 

“More books?” Banjou asked, with an eyebrow raised. 

 

“Something a little bit different.” Shuu put the cup down on the granite counters. Fine Italian marble wasted on Kaneki and Co. “Do you mind holding down the fort while I’m out?”

 

“Holding down,” Banjou was cut off before he could finish saying anything. 

 

“  _ Grazie _ !” 

 

*

 

Banjou couldn’t say anything before Shuu rushed outside, grabbing his jacket off the couch. There was nothing he could do to stop Shuu realistically. But he could keep the fort down, or whatever Shuu had asked him to do. 

 

Three hours later, Hinami had woken up to Banjou cleaning the villa. Hinami had already changed after waking up, and entered the living room hoping to talk to Shuu and thank him for last night. She felt a lot better knowing that he was looking out for her.  

 

“If you’re looking for Tsukiyama, he left.” Banjou said, he knew she was looking for him from the conversation they had in the early morning. He was down on all fours scrubbing the floor. It had been deep cleaned last week, but the blood Kaneki tracked as the always left some stains on the wooden floor. 

 

“Will he be coming back?” She walked over the wet floor and then sat on the couch in the middle of the living room. 

 

“Yes.” He was bad at lying, but that was because his body language gave him away. His body was on the floor, and he was scrubbing it, Hinami wouldn’t be able to tell. 

 

Part of him, however, knew Shuu did not leave without a purpose, and he would come back, if only to prove Banjou wrong about Hinami’s stress. It wasn’t that Banjou didn’t believe a child could be stressed, it was more that Hinami had nothing to worry about. She was well-fed, and she was safe inside this house.

 

“Do you need any help?” Hinami asked, watching Banjou clean. She felt awful that he was the only one cleaning. Hinami didn’t like making other people do her work. 

 

“Yes. Go grab a mop from the closet, we can help each other clean.” 

 

It took them another three hours to clean every nook and cranny of the grand villa. And Hinami had to admit, it made her a lot more relaxed now that she had explored most of her new home with Banjou. She hadn’t had the chance to do it in the level of intimacy that they just had. She was always too scared to find out secrets that didn’t belong to her, but apparently, none of those existed here. 

 

When they’re finally putting away the cleaning supplies, they hear a doorbell ring. Their doorbell was a beautiful melody that Shuu had picked himself. Hinami left Banjou in the kitchen while she went to answer the door. She expected Kaneki, but it was none other than the Gourmet himself, and he was bearing gifts. Two full bags, and a bouquet of flowers. He placed both of the bags on the floor.

 

Hinami could smell meat on him. It smelt high-grade, like it came from the legs of an athlete. Actually, she could smell multiple cuttings of meat on him, but all of them weren’t the same as the meat that Yomo or Banjou bought home.  

 

“Hello, my little flower.” Shuu picked out a daisy from the bouquet, placing it delicately in her hair. 

 

She wrapped her arms around his waist, ecstatic that he had come back. 

 

“I apologize for running out in the morning, I wanted to get a few things that would make you feel better.” Shuu laughed awkwardly. “You seemed...anxious last night, and I thought these things would make you feel more at home.” 

 

“You didn’t have to.” But Hinami still wanted to see what was inside the bags. He had never cut back when it came to gifts, especially gifts for her. “I’m fine.” 

 

It could have very well been a lie, but Hinami’s fine was a normal person’s anxious. She didn’t know that a life could be simple, and easy. 

 

“You say that, but let’s go in and see what the bags have in store for us, hm?” 

 

What was inside the bags was to say the least, amazing. To someone of Hinami’s background of course. 

 

Hinami still wasn’t used to getting gifts from Shuu, even if he had rebuilt her entire wardrobe and then some. He had bought her another dress today, a short strapless one with a daisy pattern, with a pair of white shoes to match. He also bought a new chess table for the villa, he told Hinami that he’d teach her tomorrow, so that she could calm herself whenever she was afraid. He told her that distracting herself, was usually the best way to keep herself calm. 

 

Then came the question of all the meat. Shuu never came home with food, and if he did, he never really shared it with anyone around him. He was a selfish eater. But there were thinly sliced pieces of leg meat and chest meat on the table. Shuu informed them that it came from a bodybuilder, and before Hinami could feel said he said something else:

 

“He was a bad person. So this is his punishment.” 

 

It didn’t satiate Hinami, but knowing he was a bad person, at the very least made her feel more comfortable about eating the body. But that still didn’t answer the question of  _ why _ the meat was there. 

 

“Tsukiyama, why did you go through all this trouble? We have food for the rest of the week, and Kaneki is currently on the hunt for more too.” Banjou asked with a hint of suspicion in his voice. Shuu obviously could not be trusted, but he wouldn’t really waste any food, especially something of this grade. Shuu had mentioned that he had picked out the slices himself, and they were professionally sliced instead of being hacked at with any saw and kagune. 

 

“Ah, when I used to have night-terrors as a child, Matsumae would read to me.” He struggled with the pocket of his jacket, and then pulled out a tattered recipe card. “She would read recipes to lull me back to sleep.”

 

He handed the card to Hinami, and then beamed. “It was a recipe for cake, that I eventually memorized and recited to myself to calm down. Now, I’m not sure it would work for you, little miss, but I thought we might try to make it so that you can have a kickstart to memorizing the recipe.” 

 

Hinami looked through all the recipe trying to understand the kanji, and smiled. It wasn’t too hard to read and the handwriting was terribly neat. “Can ghouls eat this recipe?” 

 

“Of course! It’s made from meat, that is why I bought so much of it. I even bought fat to cook and bind the meat with.” 

 

Banjou had his lips pressed together. “Really? That’s why you disappeared for six hours?” 

 

“No need to act like fresh meat isn’t worth a few hours without me.” 

 

“Did you,” Banjou raised an eyebrow, “ _ just _ kill him?”

 

“Fresh meat is fresh meat.” Shuu said, as he walked into the kitchen, with Hinami following him. “I had my eyes on him for a little while. I thought using him for this occasion would best. I  _ only _ want the best for Hinami.”  

 

Despite everything, Shuu did treat Hinami like she was part of the family. Hinami didn’t care that Shuu had killed a man for her anymore. She was finally getting used to the idea that they had to kill, she would rather not have blood on her hands, but Shuu being so blase about it and not twisted helped ease her. Bad people made for good food. 

 

Hinami followed Shuu into the kitchen, and watched as he began pulling out different bowls and a baking pan. 

 

“Since when do we have all this shit?” Banjou asked and examined the bowl that was on top of the counter. It was stained glass, heavy and expensive. 

 

“Language, Banjoi.” Shuu teased and then grabbed the measuring cup from the cupboard. “I’ve lived in this house for longer than you can imagine, I usually have human guests over.” It was cocky and he grinned slightly.

 

“You have human companions?” Banjou asked. He wasn’t surprised, ghouls could barely stand the likes of Shuu, perhaps humans liked him for his colorful heritage. But he had realized that most girls liked him because of his slightly eerie looks. 

 

“You have human friends?” Hinami was in awe. Of course she knew she had to co-exist with the humans, but she never particularly considered that they could be friends too. She remembered Miss Hori Chie briefly, she didn’t smell like a ghoul but she was definitely covered in Shuu’s scent. 

 

“Of course. Life is boring if you fill it with people that are just like you.”

 

Banjou rolled his eyes, but the statement had filled Hinami with intrigue. Could there really be a life where she would have human friends? 

 

Shuu began unfurling the meat on the baking sheet, and then asked Hinami and Banjou if they wanted to help him out with the preparation. Banjou wasn’t too keen on it, something about the fact that they had just cleaned the kitchen with bleach. He knew that they would make a mess in the kitchen, and did not want to go back to clean it. He frowned when Shuu pointed it out that things will always get dirty. They were like an old married couple that could never quite stop bickering about anything. Every little thing would set them off.

 

But there was love in the way they treated each other, there was love in the way they treated Hinami. Hinami could feel it as Shuu held her from behind and taught her how to mince the meat into neat little cubes. On another day he’d teach her how to sauté a pate. 

 

Banjou kept reprimanding Shuu whenever Hinami got too close to comfort with the butchers knife, but she would have to learn eventually how to use it. 

 

They spent most of the afternoon putting the cake together, and even placing it in the oven to cook. Hinami had never had cooked meat before, so this was definitely an exciting first for her.

 

Shuu made Banjou take out the cake, claiming that his back hurt too much for him to pick it out. It was then dosed in a healthy mix of fat and salt to substitute icing. A small piece of it was cut and served for Hinami. Shuu and Banjou could wait to eat.

 

“So what do you think of it little miss?” Shuu asked with all the hope in his eyes. He very rarely wanted approval from someone who wasn’t Kaneki or his father. “I loved this when I was younger.”

 

Banjou walked with hopeful eyes much like a father’s. He also hoped that she would enjoy it, but wouldn’t voice his concerns about it.

 

Hinami stuck her fork in, and was immediately surprised by the rich salty taste that cooked meat had. It was very different and much more enjoyable than raw meat. Her eyes went black to reveal her two kaguans. 

 

“It’s...very good.” She said, her mouth still filled with cake. 

 

Banjou and Shuu both smiled. 

 

“Maybe you aren’t a bad chef, Tsukiyama.” Banjou stated without a hint of ill will in his voice. “I should have some of it too.”

 

“We both should have a piece, I think we’ve earned it, no?” Shuu’s eyes twinkled softly as he smiled, it was so infectious that he could see the edges of Banjou’s lips curl too. 

 

Hinami felt relaxed for the first time in a long time. This was her family now, even if they weren’t from blood. She knew she shouldn’t, but she could get used it. And if Shuu was any indicator, eventually she’d have humans in her life too. I She knew that a life like that would always be out of reach for her because of her status. But Shuu and Banjou had helped her imagine: a life that was calmer and happier than this, where people only died if they were monsters, the innocent didn’t have to die. 

 

Hinami dreamed of it. She would sleep better tonight.

 


End file.
